Artem Case Studies

Brian the Confused Robot Confused.Com

When approached by car insurance website Confused.com to build animatronic robots for their latest campaign, the Artem team, headed by supervisor Colin Foster, took the visual designs done by Painting Practice from the client and started the task of making them fully practical. Two models were eventually built, both standing at 1.2m tall (4ft). One is a static model with joints that can be moved into different positions for use on stills shoots. The second robot is animatronic with radio control for use on the TV adverts. It has 15 functions – allowing it to move its head, arms, grab with its hands and rotate its body, as well as the ability to motor around.

Perhaps the main challenge was the deadline! It took the Artem team just 16 days to complete the project from start to finish, with many late nights along the way. The design was drawn up in ‘Solidworks’ on the computer to check everything fitted and moved correctly as there was very limited room inside for the complex mechanics, circuitry and batteries. Once happy there would be few surprises later on in the manufacturing process, the physical work could start. All the parts and mechanisms for the robots were produced in-house, not least because there was no time to involve outsourcing. The body work and panels were manufactured using a combination of 3-axis CNC machining, 3D printing and hand model-making before final finishing and boxing them up in flight cases ready for a (hopefully) long life.

Brian, as he is called, has now been out filming on numerous occasions with the crew and excites interest from the public wherever he goes.